Bevagna, Umbria, Italy

We visited this tiny, walled village this year and it proved to be one of my favorite places in Italy. Known for its handicrafts, such as the ironworks, the ceramics and the weavings, this place was full of hand made goods that carry a taste of the village and the people who made them. This was a very rustic place to visit, and one that I will return to again and again-but not in the winter as I hear it gets really cold since it is in the mountains! I thought you would enjoy some of my photos of the town called Bevagna-it stole my heart.

a boy stands outside a bakery/pizzeria, although the pizza here is very different, you’ll see…

If you were raised Catholic as I was, this is a familiar site. I felt that the purple cloth against the black wood seemed so regal. I loved this church.

Of course, dear Mary is there to guide us!

This is the outside of a butcher whose family has been in the business for four generations. The butcher and his wife run the shop now and he is a true master at his trade. The place was clean as a whistle and actually smelled delicious when you walked in. They were so generous too-they didn’t speak a lick of English, so it’s a good thing I speak some Italian, but it was probably better that we didn’t know exactly what we were eating. As you can see from the sign, they had porchetta, coppa and bread, amongst other things.

Here is the inside of the macelleria. See all of his hand made sausages and salamis hanging, alongside the cheeses?

Down the road to the pasta maker, we find these delicious, hand made raviolis, gnocchi and spaghetti. The gnocchi are made with local red wine, which is found in all sorts of dishes in Umbria. They stew with the wine, put it into sauce, and as you can see, flavor the pasta with it too. Look at how thick the spaghetti is, not really called spaghetti there.

This is an example of the beautiful ceramics you see in Bevagna. This person’s tile identifies him as “il fabbro.” I can’t for the life of me figure out what that means but when I do, I’ll tell you too.

Here is the inside of an old theater that is still in operation after hundreds of years. It’s small, but beautiful. This is the ceiling, of course.

The Fiat 500 is maybe my favorite little old car. But for streets this narrow, you have to have a little car or else you’ll knock over all of the sidewalk tables. Note the cobblestones.

Here the same bakery where we saw the boy in the doorway, makes their version of lunch. It is like pizza, but almost more like a pita. It’s soft and doesn’t have much of a crust to the bottom. You can thinly slice it in half and use it as sandwich bread, as you can see in the bottom right slices.